


Living For The Chase

by Salmon_Pink



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Community: ladiesbingo, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 06:07:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6362569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmon_Pink/pseuds/Salmon_Pink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life, or lives, she had before are over. Now she is Dottie, always, because that's the name that Peggy calls her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living For The Chase

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _Agent Carter_ Season Two. Written for [Ladies Bingo](http://ladiesbingo.dreamwidth.org/), prompt "half-life", and for [Comment Fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com), [prompt](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/504865.html?thread=74111265#t74111265) "any spy fandom, favourite alias".

She’s waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting with bated breath. She’s _always_ been waiting, although she didn’t know it until Peggy swept into her life.

Dottie waits. Because that’s who she is now, Dottie Underwood forevermore. Not the girl who had a name once upon a time, or had, at least, a designation as she trained to be a weapon, beautiful and deadly. Not any of the covers that have come before, not even her first assumed name on her first true mission. 

She’s Dottie Underwood, because that’s how Peggy sees her. That’s the name that falls from Peggy’s lips, and that makes it _perfect_.

She’s Dottie Underwood, and she waits.

Limping away from that confrontation in the aeroplane hangar, her blood dripping behind her as she stumbled across the tarmac, she was waiting for Peggy to follow her. Leaving a trail of destruction in her wake as she hunted for the elusive Arena Club pin, she was waiting for Peggy to find her. Sitting in that cell with its bare walls and the stench of bleach, she was waiting for Peggy to visit her.

And now Dottie’s on the run again, and she’s waiting for Peggy to _catch_ her.

She remembers the days before Peggy, standing in front of a filthy mirror, her hair blonde and perfectly curled, a new identity to create, a new mission to complete. “I’m Dottie Underwood,” her reflection had said, quiet, calm, patient. “I’m Dottie Underwood.” Repeated over and over, her accent bouncing across America, changing from state to state each time.

She’d smiled, a guileless and charming expression. There’d been a crack through the mirror, splitting her reflection from her left temple to the right side of her chin. For a moment, her smile had changed - it grew wider, crueller, her eyes hard and sharp and her teeth on display. There’d been no humanity on her face; she was a moving corpse, her grin a twisted mockery of the humour she didn’t feel.

The moment passed. She smiled softly again. “I’m Dottie Underwood,” she’d said , a sweet Southern twang to her voice.

She remembers imagining the crack in the mirror had grown deeper at the sight of her.

When she was compromised, that persona should have disappeared, shed like a snake’s skin and left to rot on the ground. But she can’t let go, she can’t let go of _Dottie_ , can’t be anyone else but this version of herself. If she took a new name, took a new role, would Peggy recognise her? Would Peggy still want to chase her? Dottie won’t take that risk.

Because Peggy is _everything_. She’s redefined who Dottie is, turning the muted shades of red that Dottie’s always lived in, rusted and dark as dried blood, into vivid slashes of scarlet.

She thinks of Peggy and her heart beats fast, her palms sweat, warmth rushes through her like a fever. Peggy is her sole focus, a vibrant light she leans toward. Peggy is excitement and frustration and desire, and all the American movies she’s studied have taught Dottie that what she is feeling is _love_.

She loves Peggy, from the blow of her fist against Dottie’s cheek to the press of her lips beneath Dottie’s mouth. She wants that again, wants to recapture that kiss, no sedative-laced lipstick between them this time, just _heat_.

She’d sat in Peggy’s room in the Griffith, looking into the mirror atop the vanity. “I’m Peggy Carter,” she’d said, her accent English and her voice aloof, imagining what it would be like to be this flawless porcelain doll of a woman. 

But Dottie knows now that Peggy isn’t flawless, and that’s she’s all the more magnetic for it. Dottie knows now that she doesn’t want to be Peggy, she wants to _possess_ her. 

And she knows now that Peggy feels that pull too, their lives and their fates intertwined. It is love for Dottie, and Peggy may not know it yet but one day Dottie will show her, will make Peggy see that she loves Dottie right back.


End file.
